This is the highest concentration of the heat-trapping gas ever recorded at the Observatory, where direct measurements have been taking place for more than 60 years, giving us the longest detailed record.

Passing 410 ppm “is important because it punctuates another milestone in the upwards march of CO2,” according to Ralph Keeling, head of the Scripps CO2 program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.

“At the recent pace, we’ll hit 450 ppm in a mere 16 years, and 500 ppm 20 years after that. That’s well within dangerous territory for the climate system,” Keeling added.

216 thoughts on “CO2 Just Hit 410ppm – and All is Well”

The concentration of CO2, be it 400 or 500 ppm, does not register with most people as a significant argument
in this context. What is registered in people’s mind is this FALSE statement always quoted by alarmists:
” Carbon dioxide (CO2), the No. 1 greenhouse gas leading to man-made global warming,” Carbon Dioxide is NOT, repeat NOT, the No.1 greenhouse gas. Water vapour Is! It’s 94% of green house gas. And it causes most of the earths warming, without which the world be in a severe ice age. CO2’s effect is minimal as Carbon Dioxide is only .04% – and man’s contribution is even less!!

H2O cools the surface when it is evaporated into water vapor
H2O in the form of water vapor increases the emissivity of the air and thus enhances the ability of heat to move up the atmospheric column via IR radiation
H2O when cooled at altitude condenses into clouds which shades and thus further cools the surface.
H2O within clouds precipitate rain and snow, which further cools the ground
Ground water is then evaporated again as the water cycle repeats and repeats and repeats.

There are even some who doubt the existence of a greenhouse effect. I Don’t see any way to prove them wrong even though logic demands that there be some effect. But then logic demands that CO2 could only have a minuscule effect.

Richard has it right in this thread (among others). The Hydro cycle is in fact a Rankine Cycle and operates as he describes. Water, therefore is both a greenhouse gas and a cooling mechanism all taking place in the clouds as it flips back and forth in its phase changing process.
For every Kilogram of water evaporated from the surface, some 680 WattHrs. are dissipated into the atmosphere with a proportion going on into space. It makes the CO2 figures look a bit pesky in comparison. (Check the steam tables).

The good news is that the best evidence is that the warming from anthropogenic CO2 emissions is modest and benign, and the higher CO2 levels are very beneficial for both agriculture and natural ecosystems.

To play devil’s advocate, the quote does not state that CO2 is the #1 greenhouse gas, even though it is likely designed to leave people that impression. The qoute states CO2 is the #1 GHG leading to MAN-MADE global warming. The vast majority of scientists agree that CO2 is the primary method for man’s contribution to warming, however small that contribution might be. The leaders of the CAGW cult are slippery and evil, but not inherently dumb.

Which do humans contribute more of to the atmosphere: molecules of H2O or molecules of CO2? With all the damming of rivers and reservoirs for irrigating millions of acres of formerly drier land, I would guess H2O, but the problems to estimate the anthropogenic contributions for both of these molecules are wicked.

You are ignoring the fact that there are not even any “greenhouse gases.” Water vapor, CO2 and the mini-minsucle methane are “radiative gases” that convert IR to heat and heat to IR. They are saturated in sunlight and work both directions, effectively having no effect. The huge water cycle heat engine is a major, major negative feedback. The warmists completely ignore the water cycle and the models have sunlight 24/7.

It is during the night that CO2 and water vapor convert heat in the air to IR radiation, which is why the air chills so rapidly after sunset and little breezes kick up so quickly on a sunny day with scudding clouds creating shadows in which the air chills rapidly—that’ show fast this conversion is in the real world.

Add to this the fact that the half-life of CO2 and methane are both around 5–6 years and you have a decidedly dynamic system. The IPCC claims a 200-year half-life based on nothing and NASA/NOAA claims a 1000-year half-life based on political needs.

Taking the claim that CO2 has risen from 280 to 400 ppm in the last 70 years, the claim that radiative gases make the planet 30 deg C warmer than without these gases, and the supposed 5% of this CO2 increase due to our emissions, you can estimate the effects.

31 deg C x 3% CO3 effect x 5% emissions = 0.047 deg C.

Or, assuming, undetectably, that humans are responsible for 5% of the 120 ppm CO2 increase over the last 70 years, that’s 6 ppm due to us. So, 6/280 ppm x 0.93°C = 0.020°C,

As a thermodynamic factor for CO2, alpha was dishonestly altered by a factor of 12 by the “scientists” at the IPCC, the real effects become 0.0040 and 0.0017°C.

If we ceased 100% of all CO2 emissions, the maximum effect would be 2–5 100ths of a degree C.

All of these 100ths and 1000ths of a degree are entirely undetectable in the real world. It is hardly worth the $8 quadrillion ($8 x 10^15) they estimate it will cost to fight global warming this century, if we do all they say we should.

Enjoy, take a deep breath and exhale—you are feeding the plants.

But, what about the water vapor? Well, as part of the water cycle in which water evaporates, warm humid air rises to altitude, cools, and rains back down, water vapor is part of a huge global heat engine that imposes a significant negative feedback, which is what keeps our climate so very stable stable and only responsive to major changes in energy input, such as from the Sun and ocean cycles.

If the quoted
‘ Ralph Keeling, head of the Scripps CO2 program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.

“At the recent pace, we’ll hit 450 ppm in a mere 16 years, and 500 ppm 20 years after that. That’s well within dangerous territory for the climate system” ‘ is correct [and I am sure his basic sums – if not his preposterously overblown conclusions – are plausible], then in 2054, I will have to stop commenting –

“And the total CO2, to the nearest one-tenth of one percent in the Earth atmosphere is Zero.”

Thirty six more years with – near as dammit – no CO2 in the atmosphere . . . .

Hey Trebla I am impressed at your rebuttal to the article. You brought out some well researched points and backed them up with well documented facts, showing both your grasp of the relevant science and your possession of critical thinking skills. You sure proved the author wrong.

The truth is the source of my truth. the messenger is irrelevant. You, Trebla, on the other hand seem to require someone in “authority” to tell you what is the truth and regardless of how true it is or not you’ll believe it like the good little lemming you are.

After all the hype and press about CO2 levels10 to 15 years ago …. 350, then 400 …. I’m surprised more people don’t call the alarmists on their claims. Have they have successfully steered the MSM into hyping normal weather events as “extreme” and the “new normal” or are people wise now?

CAGW/Climate Change is not on people’s radar. They are ignoring the propaganda. If you ask people what they think is the nation’s most important problem, they do not mention CAGW. link In the latest Gallup poll in April, one percent mentioned “Environment/Pollution”. Zero percent mentioned “Natural disaster”.

If directly asked a question about climate change, people will give an answer that they think will make them look good to the pollster. Bear that in mind when you see poll results that purport to show overwhelming public support for climate action.

For what it’s worth, the most mentioned problem is “Dissatisfaction with government/Poor leadership” by a fair margin.

In Behavioral Psychology terms you could say that 30 years of dire warnings followed by nothing dire ever actually happening has resulted in the successful -extinguishing- of any sense of alarm or fear of climate-related catastrophe.

” what you say is true, but the same “deep thinkers” voted Trump into office.”

Yeah, and us “deep thinkers” are happy about that. In fact, we consider it a wonderful miracle that the Socialist agenda has been temporarily derailed in the United States. Our goal is to make this derailment permanent and make all the U.S. socialists move to the EU where they will feel much more at home.

The Dems have left a large chunk of the population in deep pain. link At this point many of them don’t give two hoots if they bring the whole system crashing down around their own ears. Trump seems to have understood that, Clinton sure didn’t. No Nobel Prizes required.

If we we able to burn all the fossil fuel we have at one time it would add up to less than 1,000ppm. Of course, we can’t burn all the fossil fuels at one time, it will take centuries to do that. The latest estimate of ECS is about 1.2C per doubling of CO2, so that is supposedly what we would get if CO2 levels hit 800ppm. The 1.2C level is *under* the IPCC’s panic limit of 1.5C.

Of course, Climate Change Guru James Hansen says we will see dire consequences if we hit 450ppm. No turning back after that, according to Hansen. Of course, he is wrong, just like he has been wrong and deceptive all along. It is just more unsubstantiated alarmism.

If we we able to burn all the fossil fuel we have at one time it would add up to less than 1,000ppm. Of course, we can’t burn all the fossil fuels at one time, it will take centuries to do that. The latest estimate of ECS is about 1.2C per doubling of CO2, so that is supposedly what we would get if CO2 levels hit 800ppm. The 1.2C level is *under* the IPCC’s panic limit of 1.5C.

Of course, Climate Change Guru James Hansen says we will see dire consequences if we hit 450ppm. No turning back after that, according to Hansen. Of course, he is wrong, just like he has been wrong and deceptive all along. It is just more unsubstantiated alarmism.

I saw such a calculation in the comments of a post in the last couple of years. I think the answer was something like “if we burned all the available technically feasible fossil fuels all at once we could spike the CO2 level to about 650. At a consistent burn rate over the next 100 years, it is unlikely to ever exceed 600.” I wish I could remember which of our industry engineers posted that – as I am not sure the spike number wasn’t more like 800.

As we keep increasing the technically feasible number with improved technologies, it may be higher than that now.

Yup. Most such studies find CO2 topping out around only 600 ppm, unfortunately for trees and crops.

And, since ECS is actually well below 2.0 degrees C per doubling, and since allegedly we’ve already enjoyed one degree of beneficial warming since AD 1850, the most we can expect from maximum CO2 is much less than another degree. More’s the pity.

Any warming beyond that negligible amount will have to come from the same natural causes which brought us out of the deadly Little Ice Age into the balmier Modern Warm Period.

Reminds me the movie Tom Horn, upon seeing a lobster for the first time: “I never et a bug that big before”.

Urederra May 6, 2018 at 9:24 am

Estimates for MSL air pressure during the Carboniferous ice age range from about the same as now to slightly higher. If there were about the same amount of N2 in the atmosphere as now, then obviously the added 14 percentage points of O2 would suggest denser air. Not that CO2 makes much difference, but its level was then similar to now, due to both periods being glacial.

Exactly. The Marxists morphed into ‘Environmentalists’ when the USSR collapsed, which demonstrated for all to see that Marxist communism was slow-motion economic suicide. They are just continuing the Marxist cause under another guise. Add this to the ‘slow march through the (Western democratic) institutions and we in the capitalist West are doomed unless we wake to their tactics and stamp on them. They understand nothing else.

Really, more like +1100 ppmv to go before reaching the ideal level for most plants, though the incremental benefit of increasing CO2 level does begin to diminish above about 1000 ppmv (+600 from current). Sadly, we’ll never get there.

I expect it is even better than that graph suggests, because of the reduced water losses at higher concentrations of CO2. Thus in regions where water availability is often a limiting factor to the total growth of plants and trees, the observed aggregate photosynthesis rate will increase even more than the effect of just CO2 alone indicates.

Higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is good-news squared for much of photo-synthetic creation. The base of the pyramid thus increases its total productive capacity, and it is hard to argue that this will not also benefit other life forms further up the pyramid of life.

The colossal, willful, ignorance and hypocrisy of people and organisations who include the word “green” in their titles and public proclamations is really quite something to behold when they bleat about carbon dioxide. At some point in the future, course text(books) for history students will devote whole chapters to this topic.

Clearly this number is pretty insignificant insofar as the day-to-day workings of our planet are concerned.

Apart from improving plant growth and crop yields, it would appear to have made no difference to the weather or the climate which continues to improve slightly through natural processes over which we have little, if any, influence whatsoever!

The chances of getting to ‘double’ are approximately zero. There is not enough available carbon containing fuels available and it is not being processed at a fast enough rate to reach that milestone. As fuels become more difficult to extract, and as new forms of energy generation come on line, and as the biosphere absorbs CO2 at an increasing rate, the rate of increase will drop. If we keep going as we are and assuming fossil fuels and natural gas discoveries double what is currently known, we still peak at 540 in about 2080, thereafter a long decline.

Unless we come up with something new, like a new form of nuclear power generation, the big problem will be peak energy, not peak oil. At present, peak energy will be around 2070, about 20 years after the peak population point (forecast by the UN).

Crispi,
I think you are severely underestimating mankind’s ingenuity in finding an extracting carbon fuels sources, especially coal. Even brown coal, i.e. lignite.
There will be no other choice is greens prevail in the restrictions on nuclear fission.

A man will do whatever it takes to feed and keep his family warm when the day comes that oil runs out. He will not be able to go out and construct a nuclear power plant, but he will be able to dig coal. Every last kilo. (Which brings up the related point on why the Green-Socialists want to confiscate private firearms in the US. Sadly, Canada has no 2nd Amendment.)

“The chances of getting to ‘double’ are approximately zero. There is not enough available carbon containing fuels available and it is not being processed at a fast enough rate to reach that milestone. ”

Crispin, was there a particular reason that you neglected to denote or “flag” your above comment as being satire?

You should know by now that the proponents of CAGW not only don’t recognize “satire” when they see/read it, they don’t think it pertains to them even when they are forced to recognize it.

As CO2 partitions into water at 50 to one, for us to double atmospheric CO2, we would have to emit 50 times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today. And, yes, we do not have enough available carbon to do this

It’s meaningless in any case, because, while CO2 has been rising linearly, our emissions have been growing logarithmically. We our having no effect on this straight line. Period

How much funding will Dr. Keeling and Mauna Loa continue to receive if is ever found that CO2 reaches 500 ppm and no catastrophe occurs? Will the new panic level be set at 750 ppm or, if and when that is reached, at 1000 ppm?

We are talking about serious money here and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, make a could living of CAGW. Climate scientists are only the tip of the ice berg.

“Before we are asked to fear the atmospheric CO2 level it must be shown that temperature is responsive to changes in atmos CO2”

Chaamjamal, it is quite easy to show that ….. “temperature is responsible for changes in atmospheric CO2”, …… but you have to choose the correct “temperature measurements” to accomplish said.

And ps, ….. the quantity of atmospheric CO2 is responsive to changes in temperature, …. not vice versa.

Anyway, Chaamjamal, you need to correctly choose the “seasonal temperature measurements” of the ocean surface waters of the Southern Hemisphere, which will unquestionably prove to be the primary “driver” of changes in atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities, ….. as per dictated by Henry’s Law.

And here is “partial proof” of the aforesaid “seasonal” temperature change of the ocean waters, to wit:

Excerpted from above published commentary:

By Brandon Miller, CNN

“The level of the gas in the atmosphere, which is measured by instruments on top of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, topped 410 parts per million (ppm) for the month of April.

This is the highest concentration of the heat-trapping gas ever recorded at the Observatory, where direct measurements have been taking place for more than 60 years, giving us the longest detailed record.”

Actually, the Mauna Loa recorded atmospheric CO2 ppm topped 410 parts per million (ppm) for the first time on March 25, 2018, …… to wit

As one can see from the above factual data, ….. the atmospheric CO2 ppm, ….. which began its yearly annual increase on or about October 01, 2017 (2017 10 1 2017.7493 402.97), …… had increased to 410.06 ppm by March 25th and was “on-track” to surpassing the 413 ppm “mark” by mid-May, 2018, …… but due to the abnormally cool/cold temperatures at the end of March, …… and for most all of the month of April, …. the temperature of the ocean water in the Southern Hemisphere seems to be still having a problem on deciding whether to ingas or outgas CO2 from or to the atmosphere, to wit:
03-11-18 —————————————– 04-08-18 ————————— 04-29-18
408.72, … 409.30, … 410.06, … 409.22, … 409.47, … 411.07, … 411.68, … 409.71 …

Carbonic acid and plant growth, F. Bornemann (Kohlensäure und Pflanzenwachstum. Berlin: Paul Parey, 1920, pp. VI+110, figs. 11).This is a review of investigations, including those of the author, bearing on the relation of carbon dioxid to plant growth and on the conditions of culture and fertilization which determine the carbon dioxid content of the soil and air surrounding plants. The general conclusion is that notwithstanding the inexhaustible supply of carbon dioxid in the atmosphere there is ordinarily not enough of this gas in the plant environment for maximum growth, hence the importance of adopting methods of fertilizing or other means that will increase the supply of carbon dioxid available for plant use.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a copy of that paper, though I did find a bio for Herr Bornemann, which mentions his work on CO2 fertilization.
(If someone locates a copy of the full paper, I would be very grateful to you for contacting me!)

The Oct. 1, 1921 Saturday Evening Post also had a very long article on the same topic, which is very interesting. (It is about 4200 words, compared to only 1100 words in the SciAm article.)

I wrote: “This is the abstract of another 1920 scientific paper, which appears to be a survey paper, on the same topic: …Carbonic acid and plant growth, F. Bornemann …
Unfortunately, I haven’t found a copy of that paper… (If someone locates a copy of the full paper, I would be very grateful to you for contacting me!)”

I found it. It’s a book, not a survey paper.

The trick was to translate the title back into German, and then search for it. There’s a google-digitized version here:

Unfortunately,
● it is in German
● and it is in a very baroque font
● and they only allow downloading one page at a time
● and in their online viewer the OCR’d text is not available, and so not google-translatable

And every molecule of oxygen we breathe started out as CO2, which was reduced and hydrated within the chloroplast of a plant.
The entire biosphere is composed of molecules which originated as the glucose produced in this way, and then transformed into the lipids, carbohydrates and amino acids of which we and every other living thing are 100% composed of…with some other elements sprinkled in here and there for flavor.
CO2…all of it, them, and us.
Every.
Single.
Living.
Molecule

Wonder how much of the CO2 is due to the Kilauea Volcano? Mauna Loa looks to be about 20 miles from Kilauea as the crow flies. According to Wikipedia, “Kīlauea’s current eruption dates back to January 3, 1983, and is by far its longest-duration historical period of activity, as well as one of the longest-duration eruptions in the world.” I don’t know the prevailing wind direction, but it seems reasonable to think some of that CO2 would drift toward Mauna Loa over the years.

Like Indiana Sue, I thought of the Kilauea Volcano. The proportions might vary but as I understand it, there is always CO2. Kilauea has also sent some sizable chunks of forest up in smoke. There have been bushfires 6 to 20km upwind of my CO2 datalogger, and that results in spikes of 20 – 30 ppm. I get unmitigated airflow off the south western Pacific 60% of the time. I don’t monitor continually, but I started it up half an hour ago. Lowest is usually 380 ppm in late morning, starts to rise after sunset (around 6pm), Highest is 430 ppm, usually at 9pm, stays above 400 during the night, drops below 400 by 8 am eg when photosynthesis has properly kicked in. No significant change in the past 5 years.

Yes, Sue +1
I was wading through all the other opinion comments until I found somebody who was actually talking about the science of this study. The actual science, which SHOULD cause you to question what else might be possibly contributing to or confounding my data.

Based on direct measurements around the Etna (Sicily, Italy) volcano, one of most active volcanoes in the world, the total CO2 emissions of all land volcanoes in the world is less than 1% of what humans emit. Undersea volcanoes are not measured, but most of that CO2 is captured by seawater under high hydrostatic pressure and undersaturated waters for CO2.
Mauna Loa monitors for the variability in CO2 levels. If the wind comes from the side of volcanic vents, they have a high variability in the CO2 10-second readings over an hour and these data are not used for daily to yearly averages (but still are available for calculations by others). The same for upwind conditions when CO2 depleted readings are caused by vegetation in the valleys. See:https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html

Thus Mauna Loa and other places give reliable CO2 levels as only “clean background” data are used from a wide area over the oceans.

…..The level of the gas in the atmosphere, which is measured by instruments on top of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, topped 410 parts per million (ppm) for the month of April…..

You beat me to it Indiana Sue… Kilauea only erupted a few days ago but its been ‘grumbling and belching’ for a while before ‘upchucking’… sorry if I don’t use proper volcanic terminologies.
And then isn’t there a new submarine volcano rising from the deep soon (geologically) to give birth to the next addition to the Hawaian Island chain? And if so would this or other submarine hotspots not be adding non Anthropogenic CO2 into the atmosphere?
Regards
Bahamamike

I think the photo at the top needs a better explanation. I think most people looking at it think that it is the same tree at different times, or whatever.

But…

I assume that they are all different trees, but over the same time period. I assume that the results are shown in an enclosed greenhouse environment. Were they all watered the same? What about the weather/temperature where they were grown – all the same?
I assume so, but from the repeated photo that I have seen the details are not readily available. Are they all different trees? ETC,.

My understanding is they were all grown under similar conditions except CO2 levels. The person in the photo is Dr. Sherwood Idso, Dr. Craig Idso’s father. Dr. Craig Idso can be contacted through http://co2science.org

Empircal data show doubling CO2 to 560 ppm will increase crop yields by 30%, which would greatly help feed billions of the abject poor and decrease food costs for everyone.

CAGW charlatans, of course, must refuse to admit any benefits from higher CO2 levels, so they concocted bogus computer models showing any increase in crop yields from CO2 fertilization would miraculously be more than offset by crop losses from CO2-induced severe weather incidence…

Your “average man in the street” has no conception of “parts per million”
(PPM), so scientists can use the term with impunity: they prefer to do so
because they can then toss around large figures like ‘ 400 (!) ‘. So let’s take
another perspective: a few decades back the atmosphere consisted of
3 parts CO2 and 9,997 Other; now it consists of 4 parts Co2 and 9,996
Other. Whoopee. If someone now triumphantly cries that this shows that
CO2 has increased by 33% (!!!), well, who could gainsay them?

Somehow they never get around to mentioning the part about how much 410PPM is as a proportion of the atmosphere.
410 is a biggish number.
You would be doing OK if you made $410 per hour.
You would be really huge if you weighted 410 pounds.
You would be really hot if it was 410 F outside, or even K.
You would be really tired and broke if you had 410 girlfriends.
But how much is 410 PPM in the air?
Well, the part that aint CO2 is now only 999,590 PPM instead of the 999,600 PPM it was a few years ago.
In fact, amounts of stuff are quoted this way when they are so tiny of an amount it would be difficult to talk about using the more typical way that atmospheric components are measured, as a percentage.
Neon is 0.001818%
Helium is 0.000524%
Methane is 0.000179%
No wonder they like to use PPM, which makes those numbers a more convenient 18 PPM, 5 PPM, and 2 PPM, rounded up.

– Water is highly variable, but is usually between nearly 0 to 4%, although sometimes as much as 5%,
Typical amount in temperate zones is 1 or 2%, and average for the whole globe is 0.4%.
5% huh? I think 50,000 PPM sounds like a lot more water.

For dry air:
– Oxygen 20.95% or 209,500 PPM
– Nitrogen 78.09% or a whopping 780,900 PPM
– Argon 0.93% or 9,300 PPM
Golly…those three add up to 99.97%. And I think I am choking on all that argon *gasp*
Gosh…those last three alone leave no room for the amount of CO2 they are reporting, let alone the neon, helium, and methane in the air. That scary methane. Less than 2PPM…that sounds pretty unscary…no wonder we never ever hear that number… we just hear how terribly and completely awful methane is.
Then we have Carbon Dioxide.
Ooh, devil gas.
The one we all died graveyard dead without, right along with very nearly every other living thing in the entire planet:

– CO2 0.04%
Well, what gives…those numbers do not add up.
Why?
Because…it is terribly cumbersome to quote the percentages of the big three in a way that is both accurate and leaves room for the four one hundredths of one percent of the one left in our carbon starved atmosphere.
PPM is used because the amount is so tiny it is less than the rounding error of the other gasses in the air!

So after trillions spent on reduction schemes and countless COP junkets CO2 is still rising. When will we start to see value for all that effort? CO2 the control knob apparently can’t be turned down. The AGW movement has a split personality- one raging about CO2 and the other carrying on as usual because it really doesn’t matter.

It is said one of the British parliament members chose to upbraid Winston Churchill for his prodigious drinking habits. The gentleman announced he had calculated that Churchill had consumed liquor sufficient to fill the parliamentary chambers knee deep, to which Churchill replied“Ahhh… so much achieved and yet, so much to do!”

I think it entirely apropos for the 410 ppm CO2 achievement also! It’s a good start…..

410 ppm volume is an incredible concentration of four hundred and ten, ten thousandths of one percent by volume. CO2 has increased from two hundred and seventy-five, ten thousandths of one percent since 1900. Ain’t that scary?

“The main danger of course is that when CO2 hits 500ppm and nothing bad happens, people will finally stop listening to wild claims of imminent catastrophe.” Not at all, the story line will be changed, and they will scream louder.

Health evaluation of carbon dioxide in indoor air
Abstract
For over 150 years, carbon dioxide has been
an acknowledged indicator of indoor air
quality. To estimate the air quality in
mechanically ventilated buildings, DIN EN
13779 proposes four different levels of indoor
carbon dioxide concentration. However,
apart from the early guideline value of
1000 ppm carbon dioxide recommended by
Pettenkofer in 1858, there is no actual
guideline value for naturally ventilated
buildings. Regarding recent intervention
studies, the German Working Group on Indoor
Guideline Values of the Federal Environmental
Agency and the States´ Health Authorities therefore recommends the
following guide values, based on health and
hygiene considerations: concentrations of
indoor air carbon dioxide below 1000 ppm
are regarded as harmless, those between
1000 and 2000 ppm as elevated and those
above 2000 ppm as unacceptable. In addition
to the recommendations for TVOC
values, this further assists in the assessment
of indoor air quality.
Keywords
carbon dioxide · indoor air · ventilation ·
evaluation · health effects · guideline value

Has anybody noticed an interesting thing about the Mauna Loa CO2 graph?. Notice that the angle of decrease during the spring is exactly the same angle of increase during the autumn. Either the Mauna Loa data are bogus or else CO2 emissions have nothing to do with the amount that stays in the atmosphere. If the Mauna Loa data is NOT bogus, the rate of increase in the fall should be sharper than the decrease in the spring. That is because the CO2 emissions are fairly constant throughout the year and there is certainly little difference between spring fossil fuel emissions and autumn fossil fuel emissions, Indeed the Mauna Loa graph doesnt show any difference. The only difference it shows is a neat zigzag pattern which in itself is suspicious because the pattern is too consistent. However my further point is that since the spring and fall fossil fuel emissions are constant, the fall (autumn) upward increase should be at a sharper angle since the photosynthesis process is in reverse compared to the spring. So the fall(autumn) non photosynthesis line should be reenforced by the constant fossil fuel emissions whereas the spring photosynthesis actually lowers the CO2 levels but according to the graph it lowers them at the same rate that the autumn line increases. That is impossible unless the net CO2 levels have nothing to do with the fossil fuel emissions. Well we partially know that anyway because since 1980 the the CO2 levels have only gone up 22% and the fossil fuel emissions have gone up 80%. I have previously mentionned that the Vostok ice core data for last 400000 years shows preindustrial CO2 levels at at a fairly constant 280ppm however during that 400000 years the temperature swings have been enormous on the earths surface with at least 4 glacial periods and 4 extremely warm periods. To top it all off, the Vostok ice core data seems suspect because there is no reason why the CO2 level should be that constant during those 400000 years when it wasnt constant at any other time in the worlds history. Now that Tony Heller has proved that NASA and NOAA have been faking the temperature and sea level data for the last 10 years, there is not 1 grain of truth in the whole global warming scenario. It is one lie built upon another lie which the climate gate emails showed.

It will only take a 2 week earlier Spring and a week later fall and then the summer removal of CO2 will be more than the emission in the winter. I figure rhe biosphere has about a 100 year lagged response. Once it gets going, TheMagicMolecule™️ will meet the Patronus called biology.

I noticed that too, Alan. The Mauna Loa CO2 chart is way too regular for this to be data from the real world – it looks like it was produced by an algorithm. But the science behind the graph is a trade secret (iirc the Mauna Loa lab itself is privately owned by Dr Keeling, the operator, who conveniently is also the head of the Scripps CO2 program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California). He is not going to disagree with himself, is he?

What mental threshold would have to be crossed for mainstream opinion to be able to achieve the realisation that human action could be beneficial to the biosphere? It is not unprecedented for living organisms to improve the planet as a habitat for life. Cyanobacteria 2 billion years ago oxygenated the atmosphere. It is the basis of the Gaia hypothesis of Richard Lovelock that the sum effect of the biosphere’s activities is to enhance the earth’s habitability. This hypothesis is true – one of the profoundest truths in biology up there with evolution by natural selection (it’s actually a connected part of the same theory).

The greenhouse effect refers to the CO2 enrichment, not a marginal and uncertain temperature effect. And it is good, not bad.

Some members of the climate research community need help in achieving this realisation. Humans are a living organism like all others. Humanity is good, not bad.

oh no its a tragedy…reeeely it is!
abc radionational this sat had flimflam flannery on and he was in Adelaide SA raving up how brave and great they were to shut the powerplant down
and how wunnerful his(has shares in i reckon) latest plan to farm seaweed would be(the geothermal sank like a rather cold stone)
that co2 has reached UNprecedented levels never achieved EVAH!! in history
i think he managed to ‘”unprecedent” at least 2 and maybe 3 times in the first 5 mins of the speech.. i was so damned angry, i scared the poor dogs out of the room and had to go outside myself as my dicky ticker isnt supposed to reach the levels it was starting to head for;-(
reckon he reached close to a lie a minute before i left the room

If the experiment, in a test tube, to illustrate that co2 causes warming was done with Co2 ppm of between 500,000- and 1,000,000 why should we be concerned . It is a nonsense experiment that that achieves the same result with Argon.

When CO2 hits 500ppm and still nothing bad has happened yet, the Drongos of CAGW theory will still believe fervently in Climate Armageddon as their belief is purely political, they have long since lost interest in following the science. The fact that people still believe in the predictions of Paul Ehrlich’s shows that they will believe in any wild but entertaining fantasy. The statement that ” Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the No. 1 greenhouse gas leading to man-made global warming” shows that the CAGW crowd is unaware of water vapour and science.
Meanwhile, the plants are rejoicing and looking forward to 500ppm.

Latest research shows that having sex is a greater risk due to elevated levels of C02. Procreation of the human species may depend on having sex in outdoor areas such as the beach or mountain tops while the wind is blowing! Honeymoons are now only recommended in Antarctica and Greenland as a result of rising temps and elevated C02!

Was that Hawaii-based pronouncement made before or after Kilauea rattled, shook and started spewing gases like SO2? Ground’s cracking open there, you know. How much tonnage is the current eruption adding to the weight of that side of the Big Island, to spur the bodaciously large landslide that will some day result in the Great Crack breaking away and sliding in to the Pacific? That’s going to generate at LO-O-O-OT of nasty gases when it happens.

Oh, yeah – did the reporter who cranked out that article actually do any research before he posted it? No, really, did he? Yeah, I didn’t think so, either. Just thought I’d ask. I wonder if he eats romaine lettuce.

Actually, the only real climate change that is empirically demonstrated dare not be mentioned by the clime syndicate. The greening of the planet and bumper harvests and the attenuation of population growth by mid century are anathema to the climate worriers. We are heading for a lush Garden of Eden earth with abundance of resources and prosperity if we can hold off the тотаliтагiаиs for another 4 or 5 decades. The price of carbon is proving to be negative in the extreme. Big oil and coal should be receiving carbon benefit cheques.

But the humanity!! Oh wait, the oxygen concentrators folks with heart disease, COPD, etc. use are really nitrogen removers, not oxygen concentrators. When they remove the nitrogen from the air, they boost the O2 to about 90%+ or up by a factor of 5. This means that the concentration of CO2 is up to 2,000 PPM in the stream. Yes, the biological transfer is based on partial pressure and the partial pressure of the O2 is much higher too, but still.

At around 6 PM yesterday, Lois and I were strolling along a popular shopping street in Vancouver. Sunny, nice breeze from the ocean. Outside of “Choices”, an upscale grocer with double-the-price “organic” food. Lot’s of people as we came to a stop waiting for the light to change. I took a deep breath, being a little obvious, and said “Oh, the air is so good”, took another big breath and said “400 parts per million CO2–wonderful.”
Got some evil stares, Lois broke up and, fortunately, the “Walk” came on and away we went.
:)

I am sorry that Ivan , whose post seems to have triggered this thread , has not joined in the conversation (unless I have missed it) because i would be interested in his analysis of the CO2 situation .
Having looked at his website there are a number of topics on which I think some of us would share common ground eg on certain pesticides and reckless use of groundwater, even if we disagree on the benefits v harm of increased CO2.

Donald: Please explain 350.org, and Worrall’s role in that. Of course, there may not be any climate scientist at 350.org. You did get the “strawman” thing right, but Worrall had no part in stuffing this scarecrow. Pretty sure the “350” group made predictions about 400 minus 50 ppm, maybe you should look them up, or are you a charter member? Little boys do all sorts of stuff, but mostly we laugh when you big boys show your stuff.

Given the loss of global ice over the last 4 decades and the fact that local heat records are outpacing local cold records at a ration in excess of 3:1, etc., etc., this bit of nonsense is the logical equivalent of “Sure, that outlet is hot and smoking, but the house hasn’t burned down yet so there’s nothing to be concerned about.”

Yer right,it is unprecedented.
The world has never been so warm.
Funny thing though, who placed that village under the ice?
How did that goldmine of Roman vintage get under there?
What kind of faker would bury a forrest under a glacier?
Not to mention those incredible Vikings digging nice 6ft graves in permafrost.
And who was the con artist that placed a “petrified” forrest on Axel Heiberg Island.?
Hand over all your possessions and flee,be very very frightened..
Enjoy.

Extrapolating a small region as representative of the global climate is hardly valid, but, for argument’s sake, let’s assume that the uncovered village is representative. Given that, what has occurred is that 1700 years of glacial growth has been erased in less than 40 years; and there’s the rub. The magnitude of the change in global temperatures is not the primary concern, it is the rate. A degree or two of temperature increase is not a threat to life on earth, although it is to specific species, rather it is the economic threat of an artificially rapid global temperature change that is the concern. The mitigation costs of rising coastal waters, shifts in agricultural regions, increased tropical disease regions, etc. occurring in a few decades, rather than over centuries, will be huge.

For a while, back in the 1990’s, it did indeed seem to me that that was the argument the global-warmers were making:
I.e. that the potential changes would actually be quite manageable if they didn’t happen too quickly. But the hymn-sheet seemed to change rapidly when it became apparent that temperatures were not changing rapidly enough for it to be considered a problem by the standards they had set themselves.

After that, they seemed to spend more time focusing on polar regions, which can and do change quite rapidly, even if the causes are entirely natural and have also happened completely naturally in the recent past. As you note, such regions are not at all representative of the whole planet. The difference between the winter snows melting completely, or not melting completely, is enormous. You can soon find yourself under a thick layer of ice, or vice-versa, if the regional climate changes only slightly.

The more disingenuous among the climate sorority are also very well aware that a polar-region average winter temperature change from, say, -40 Celsius to -30 Celsius really doesn’t mean much for life in general, simply because there locally isn’t much life in general. But for those same profoundly dishonest “scientists”, it is a great opportunity to scream about “the Arctic is screaming”.

Slipstick, shouldn’t we be able to see this “threat” already in the sea level rise, even a little bit?
The rise is so slow, mankind will slink out of the way easily, and that is IF it even happens. The temperature of the Holocene is headed in one direction, and that is down, eventually. Enjoy this epoch while it is here.

Slipstick: So 40 yrs ago was1978. Before 1978, according to you, the glaciers grew for 1700 years. Have I got that right? No glacial retreat from 318AD until 1978? And you accuse Felix of not reading? And don’t bother with the “it’s the rate” crap until you acknowledge there WAS a rate before 1978, then we’ll talk.

Glaciers have been retreating, net, since the end of the LIA. It has nothing to do with man-made CO2. While perhaps half of glaciers are retreating, others are staying put and many advancing. Hence, CO2 can’t be the cause, since it’s supposedly well mixed in the atmosphere.

Mountain glaciers are a tiny percentage of the total ice on earth, which is actually increasing in mass, thanks to the growth of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains the vast majority of ice on earth.

Felix,
Again, I’m talking about rates and, by the way, it’s significantly more than half of the glaciers that are retreating. Regarding Antarctica, I am guessing you’re referring to Zwally and others 2015. While this is certainly a fine paper, it is the only recent significant paper to reach the published conclusions and there are some issues regarding the methodology, such as the assumed firn/ice density and the reference surface. Whether the conclusions regarding the East Antarctic sheet are valid or not, Zwally’s team also pointed out that if losses elsewhere in the Antarctic continue to increase as they have, they will overtake any gains in the east in the next few decades; something I’ll bet you didn’t read when you read about the paper.

Of course I read that. Naturally they had to say that to get published. The WAIS is insignificant compared to the EAIS, and to the extent that it is losing mass, it’s because of subglacial volcanism, not CO2. There has been cooling on Antarctica, not warming.

And other recent studies have also found the EAIS gaining mass. As would be expected, since there has been no warming at all at the South Pole.

No worldwide survey of glaciers has been conducted, so your belief that over half are retreating is just a guess. The fact that glaciers are advancing as well as retreating on every continent should give you reason to rethink your guess. The best publicized instances of retreat prove to be not due to CO2 but to other processes, including some man-made, as with the deforestation of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

If CO2 were causing glaciers to recede, what caused them to do so between 1710 (after the Maunder Minimum lows of the LIA) and 1940, and why aren’t they all retreating now? Why was the world colder from 1940 to 1977, under increasing CO2, than before 1940, under low CO2?

The loss of ice over 4 decades is no greater than the loss over the previous 10 decades.
That the world has warmed since the bottom of the little ice age is not in contention.

As to your claim that record highs are out pacing record lows by 3:1, I call BS on that. It isn’t happening.

Regardless, the world is still cooler than it was during the Mideval, Roman and Minoan warm periods, when CO2 levels were lower than they are today.
The world is way cooler than it was during the Holocene Climate Optimum and the world is cooler than it has been for over 90% of the last 10K years.

Your desire to believe that there is anything unusual, much less alarming about the mild warming of the last 150 years would be amusing the actions of your fellow alarmists hadn’t resulted in the deaths of 10’s of thousands over the last few years.

Did I notice the rise in CO2? I live in a Tropical Savannah region in Central Queensland. Historically, this was a small town with a major water shortage. Very marginal.
I put in giant water tanks at the end of the last dry spell. They have been full since. Year on year, my grass is greener. I now have a small rainforest at the back of the house block. Vegetable gardens now grow where none would grow before. That’s just me.
My town is now a city, with heavy industry unconstrained by water. The trees are growing like crazy. The city is green and lush. The birds, snakes, possums, kangaroos,dolphins, giant turtles,.fish and other stuff just love it.
Have I noticed a rise in CO2 levels? My oath, on this marginal land it has resulted in huge changes. More please.
My town in all that time has grown under the shadow a very big coal power station and a massive coal port. The wild life love it.

The mid-Atlantic of the USA is turning into a deciduous jungle. When I was a child, we could walk through older forests of oak, popular, and the beach coming in (pines long gone). Now, the holly and other under-story makes it difficult. The pollen has becoming nearly unbearable and gets worse every year.

Climate improvement is becoming noticeable here in the Netherlands. Probably we should not strive for more than 1,000 ppm (arbitrary number) unless required to postpone the inevitable ice age and just to make sure the atmosphere does not change too much from the present state. We have a lot of time before we even get close to come up with a smart alternative for the current carbon way of life, the current green alternatives are pretty thin to say the least

In the late 1980’s, I visited a national park visitor center on the side of Mt. Rainier, called “Paradise”. The thing that impressed me most was the speed at which the evergreens grew in the power line right-of-ways. Who is going to pay for this tree cutting at 800 ppm?

Serious question- Isn’t Hawaii a volcanic island with many active volcanoes spewing CO2 into the atmosphere at all times? How would that be an appropriate place to make an accurate measurement of atmospheric CO2? Just sayin’ is all…….